I accidentally formatted my disk drive and lost all my important documents. The file system which I had before formatting was FAT32 and now it is NTFS. Can I get back my lost documents? If so, please guide me on how I can recover my important documents.

If you accidentally formatted your hard drive and all your data is gone, it is not a problem!! You can still recover your data with the help of powerful disk recovery software.

Data loss is not unusual and in almost all circumstances , data recovery is possible. However, there are cases when there is extensive damage to the hard drive,but even in these cases, a hard disk recovery may be possible, if the data is valuable enough to justify huge expense.

First of all let me tell you, formatting a disk to a same file system can be considered as simple formatting, whereas formatting it from one file system to another, becomes re-formatting. That means, when we format a logical disk drive from FAT32 to any other file system, we actually are actually reformatting the drive, and selecting a separate file system for the logical drive to manage the data. For e.g. a FAT32 partition can be re-formatted to FAT16, NTFS or Ext3 FS etc. However, once a drive is re-formatted, chances of data being overwritten are higher as compared to simple formatting.

REMO Recover (Windows) Pro Edition is an efficient disk recovery software using which data can be recovered from reformatted, corrupted and deleted partitions. This disk data recovery software has the best partition recovery module to locate deleted / lost partitions; this can scan an entire physical hard drive to look for traces of gone partitions using a proprietary scan engine.

Backups are necessary

Some of the prominent causes for data loss on Windows platform are human error, software / hardware glitches, sabotage etc., which eventually causes crucial project delays, financial loses, loss of personal archives like collection of photographs, music etc.

All such situations can be avoided if we have proper and regular backups of the data; However, in a survey of corporate environment, it has been found that data which lies on the desktop is mostly left out, making it more prone to data loss. But as long as Remo Recover (Windows) Pro Edition is available, disk recovery is possible to the fullest.

Harmless to use on a crashed hard disk

Remo Recover (Windows) Pro Edition is a read-only application, which means that it will only read the contents of a faulty drive and would never attempt to write to the drive you are about to recover. However, you would need to provide a safe destination drive to write the recovered data, and a healthy system, to install the software.

Recovering data from reformatted partitions

Step 1: Launch the application either from the programs list in the start menu, or from the desktop. The main window is displayed, as shown in figure a.

Figure a: Remo Recover main window

Step 2: Click on the button . As you click the button, you get a window as shown in figure b.

Figure b: FAT Partition Recovery

At this stage of the process, you need to decide whether you want to recover data from a NTFS partition or a FAT partition.

Since you have to recover lost data from your FAT partition, select the FAT Partition Recovery option.

Continue the recovery process by clicking the button “FAT Partition Recovery”, as shown in figure b.

Step 3: As soon as you click the FAT Partition Recovery button, a wizard window is displayed, as shown in figure c.

Figure c: Wizard Window

Step 4: Select the Recover your data option and click the Next button to continue. As you click the Next button, a window will be displayed to select the physical drive from which data needs to be recovered as shown in figure d.

Figure d: Select Physical drive

Select a source drive and the processing mode to process the drive.

By default the processing mode would be set to Display default partitions. Since you have to recover lost partitions, select the option Search for lost partition(s), and click the Next button. Further, select the option Thorough Scan and click the Ok button.

Step 5: Once the scan process is over, the logical drives are listed in the dialog box to select. Select the logical drive from which data needs to be recovered [you can identify the logical drive by its starting location in the drive]. Once the drive is selected, the software automatically scans the selected drive for files and folders, and displays the data in a tree format, as shown in figure e.

Figure e: Found files and folders

Step 6: Once the tree is formed the final step is to save the data onto a safe location.

If you do not want to save the recovered data now but do it later, then you can save the scanned information in a file using the ‘Save Scan Information’ option from the Tools menu. Whenever required you can open the scan info file using the ‘Open Scan Information‘ option, from the File menu, and recover data to a desired destination drive.

Important Information:

• If you do not find your files and folders in the tree structure formed, then select the Turbo scan option from Tools menu. Turbo Scan performs a rigorous search to find files and folders and will list all the found files and folders.
• Never save the data to the partition or drive from where you are recovering the data, as it may result in overwriting of data, and would result in permanent data loss.

Tags: accidentally formatted partition recovery, hard drive partition recovery, ntfs partition recovery, partition recovery, recover data from fat partition drive, recover data from hard drive, recover files from reformatted hard drive, recover lost data